Trump’s Israeli–Palestinian Plan Likely to Heighten Mideast Tensions

Summary: The international community will have to come to grips with the death of the two-state solution. It is no longer taboo to talk about alternatives, including variations of the one-state solution.

The big picture: The U.S.’ apparent strategy is to decide a priori the fate of Jerusalem and refugees in Israel's favor, and to force the Palestinians to accept an inferior deal. Whether the U.S. unveils the details of its plan during the UNGA session or not, it’s likely to exacerbate tensions in the region.

The U.S. seems to want to bypass the Palestinian National Authority by forging close ties with other Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, in the hopes that they can be relied upon to bring the Palestinians around. This strategy assumes that Arab states would be able to do so, and that they’d be willing to accept a territorial deal that excludes East Jerusalem.

But the fact remains that the parameters of this deal are perceived to be so inferior, indeed insulting, that no Palestinian or Arab leader would accept it. Visits by presidential advisers Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner in recent months have underscored this fact. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas recently revealed, for example, that both he and the Jordanian leadership rejected a U.S. proposal for a confederation of Palestinian areas.

The international community seems to be ignoring that the majority of the new Palestinian generation have lost hope in the two-state solution and shifted their focus to demanding civic and political rights and raising the costs of the occupation. The most likely outcome is a continuation of the status quo, while the ongoing construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — now home to more than 650,000 settlers — forecloses prospects for a two-state solution.

The bottom line: The international community will have to come to grips with the death of the two-state solution. It is no longer taboo to talk about alternatives, including variations of the one-state solution. That presents a whole new set of problems as the Jewish and Palestinian populations in areas under Israel’s control approach parity.

Two vital aspects to the conflict are crystal clear: Jerusalem must become the shared capital of Israel and a sovereign democratic Arab state, and Israel will never relinquish its eastern security line on the heights and valley of the Jordan River. Within such a context, a Palestinian-Jordanian federal republic (one person, one vote), with Jerusalem as its capital, and autonomous zones within a shared-rule condominium on the West Bank appears to be the only answer. A Trump confederation plan, between a Jordanian monarchy and a Palestinian sub-state entity with a fictitious capital somewhere outside of historic Jerusalem, is a non-starter. So too is the one-state solution a non-starter. Arabs and Jews must learn to live together and govern themselves on the West Bank-Judea and Samaria. But absolute sovereignty can only be applicable behind of the green line and east of the Jordan River. The King of Jordan can support such a plan within a true constitutional democracy or he can reject it and face the consequences of the democratic world. The only side capable of conquest would be an extreme right-wing Israeli government with a green-light "go ahead" from an equally extreme US Republican administration. Such a scenario is slightly more than a remote possibility given the new anti-establishment nature of the post-2016 US Republican Party. The more the Palestinian push for a one-state solution along with a renewal of intifada violence, the greater the likelihood of war and a stream of Arab refugees eastward. The more the Palestinians clamor for a one-state solution, the more their request will be met with the slogan-- "Jordan is the Palestinian state". While the huge Palestinian population east of the river must become a central factor in any potential democratic and constitutional settlement to the conflict, the questions as to the future of the West Bank and Jerusalem will always remain key. I completely disagree on the potential materialization of bi-nationalism. But Sir, you are absolutely correct that the two-state solution is dead, and what is very much needed is an alternative model.

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